


Half a loaf

by marysutherland



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:02:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world full of deranged Belgian diplomats, dodgy accountants and Sherlock playing the trumpet, John is just trying to find love and a few decent meals</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Gayalondiel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gayalondiel/pseuds/gayalondiel) for betaing

John had known, right from his first meetings with them, that the Holmeses wanted something from him. The only question had been exactly what. Sherlock was relatively easy to deduce: the first meeting at Bart's suggested that he wanted not only a flatmate, but someone to show off to. If John hadn't been in a state in which he welcomed thinking about anything that wasn't the mess of his own life, he might have sheered off at that point. He didn't normally go for exhibitionists.

He'd pigeon-holed Mycroft immediately as another exhibitionist, after the security camera tricks. He hadn't really believed he was threatening; it was only after Sherlock had called Mycroft 'the most dangerous man you've ever met' that he'd wondered if he'd accidentally wandered into a minefield. But by the end of the Pink Lady case, it seemed clear enough to John what each of the brothers were after.Sherlock might want someone to boost his ego, but he also wanted, needed, a genuine if peculiar kind of friendship. Mycroft wanted information about Sherlock, and some kind of control over him. John had chosen his side in Holmes v Holmes even before realising there was a side to choose, and he resigned himself to being a partisan in the brothers' peculiar civil war.

Though it was hard to feel that Mycroft was on the opposite side to him after the swimming pool. Mycroft had saved both their lives, and John still wasn't quite sure how he'd managed it. The semtex hadn't been real, but _something_ had promptly blown up at that stage in the proceedings, and six snipers had managed to shoot one another dead rather than their targets. When John had finally got out of hospital he made sure to go to Mycroft's office. He had a debt of honour to fulfil.

Mycroft had received his gratitude with a slightly stunned look, and John wondered, for a bemused moment, what the normal reaction was of people Mycroft had rescued from their own folly. If it was Sherlock, possibly he just told his brother to piss off. But then Mycroft slipped smoothly back into gear.

"The windows in 221B have been repaired now, and there are one or two other replacement items. If you let me know what emergency supplies you'll need, food and so on, someone can deliver them this afternoon. I gather that Sherlock is detained in hospital till tomorrow?"

"The consultants were saying next week at the earliest, but I'll give it till tomorrow afternoon before they crack and send him home. He'll have to be careful of the arm, of course, so the pin stays in."

"I'm sorry about that," said Mycroft, "but we had to react at very short notice, and the blast calculations were a fraction off – problems with calibrating the model, I believe. By the way, could I make a request, John?"

Here it came, thought John.

"No," he said, tilting his chin up. "Well, you can make a request, but it's no use."

"You haven't heard it yet," Mycroft said, beaming down at him from his perch on the desk.

"I won't spy on Sherlock, or report on him to you."

"I could point out, my dear John, that if I'd known you had the Bruce-Partington plans, we could have started setting up the rescue at the pool several hours earlier."

"I didn't know Sherlock was going to meet Moriarty there."

"Well, it was fifty-fifty between there and the London Eye. When you have two men meeting, both with a taste for melodrama, there are only a limited number of venues they might choose.Especially with London's only planetarium out of action."

"So you knew what was going to happen?" said John, and then realised he was getting perilously near to "piss off" thinking.

"We might have been able to rescue you five or six minutes earlier with more notice," Mycroft said, and added blandly, "It's surprisingly hard to practice securing a public building without someone noticing."

"I'm sorry," said John. "I thought-"

"Miracles do take a little longer. And while I'm glad Sherlock finally realised his concern for your well-being, I would have preferred to get the whole thing wrapped up with fewer...exciting incidents. Bombs make me nervous, especially when someone's strapped to them."

Glad to know it wasn't just me who was scared shitless, thought John, and said. "You saved my life. I know I've said it before, but...thanks."

"I'd prefer it if I didn't have to do that too often. It's rather an expensive process, for one thing, April's budget gone in a rather large flash. I need to have a word with Sherlock."

There was something else behind that lofty facade, but as usual, John wasn't sure what.

"So is the request that I don't get myself killed again?" he asked. Mycroft raised his eyebrows. "Try not to get myself killed at all."

"No," said Mycroft, smiling. "The request is that next time you come to see me, you don't wear a suit. Frankly, you look so uncomfortable in it that it's unsettling."

"Am I coming to see you again?"

"I hope repeatedly."

"I've already said-"

"Not to inform on Sherlock, dear me, no, but..." Mycroft paused. "Shall we call it debriefing? If you inform me of events after the fact, I can sort out loose ends before anything comes unravelled. And logistics as well, if you need any equipment of an unusual kind. I have something for you here that might come in handy, by the way." He picked up some papers stacked neatly on his desk , and handed them to John.

"A firearms certificate for you, and licensing for any ammunition you need to use. I've also, rather against my better judgement, included a firearms certificate for Sherlock. I'd prefer it if you didn't let him use your Sig again, but if he does, we might as well cover that."

"You can't get a license for a handgun nowadays," said John. "Which is why-" He stopped abruptly.

"It's merely extremely difficult to have a handgun officially licensed," Mycroft replied. "There are certain exceptions to the normal prohibitions, and you now fall under those exceptions. But I'd prefer it if there was not too much gun use, it does make the police unhappy."

"I'll try and remember that," said John. His firearm certificate, he suddenly realised, had been retrospectively dated, so in theory he'd been holding it when he'd shot the cabbie. He wondered if he should check with Mycroft whom he was allowed to shoot, and then realised that would be rather undiplomatic.

"There is one other thing I might be able to offer," Mycroft said, and there was a sudden cautiousness in his voice, "but I'm not quite sure how to phrase this..." His voice tailed off, almost as if he was embarrassed.

"You're not talking about drugs, are you?" John said, with sudden concern. "You don't...supply Sherlock, do you?"

"Good God, no, not after the effort it took to get him clean. I meant for you, no, not drugs of course," said Mycroft, with a wave of his hand. "If you need help."

"What kind of help?" John asked, wondering how much more unreal the conversation was going to get.

"Your therapist has proved to be sadly inadequate," said Mycroft, staring hard at him. "I do not pretend to any kind of psychological expertise myself, but I am rarely shocked, especially where Sherlock is concerned, and I am very discreet. If you wish to discuss things, my door is always open."

"Thank you. I think," said John. He stood up, reached out to shake Mycroft's hand, and somehow got the impression it was better not to. As he left, he wondered if he had just sold his soul without even noticing. Or if he had, whether Mycroft would collect on the bargain.

***

It wasn't like that, in the end. It was more that Mycroft ended up being on the rather short list of people John could go and talk to when he was fed up with Sherlock. Sherlock was amazing and wonderful, of course, but he could also be peculiarly wearing. It helped to have someone normal to talk to: Mrs Hudson, Sarah, sometimes Lestrade. Especially in the aftermath of a case, when a triumphant Sherlock would collapse into lethargy, ignoring the chaos left behind him.

Mycroft wasn't normal, of course, but he was good at picking up the pieces, tidying away wreckage. Sherlock had lost interest in the John Oppenshaw case when his murderers had died in a car crash in Savannah before they could be apprehended. Mycroft had taken the incidental information they'd gained about white supremacist groups and got several other arrests organised. He'd also been a big help dealing with Mrs Ronder, who'd had her face half-torn off by a lion. John had been convinced she was at risk of harming herself when they'd interviewed her. Sherlock had talked about the rationality of suicide; Mycroft had conjured up private psychiatric help at extremely short notice.

And it was astounding just how often when Sherlock was at a loose end, a message from Mycroft would arrive. Train and ferry tickets to the Scottish island of Uffa, with a flyer for the Grice Pattersons' bed and breakfast establishment, or a National Trust guidebook to Hurlstone Manor in Sussex and its curious history.

Taking to Mycroft was also...entertaining, John was starting to find. He didn't have Sherlock's peculiar charm, of course, but the quick-wittedness and the suave irony made him surprisingly good company. In small doses, of course.

***

What changed things was the Belgian, though under the circumstances, it was odd that John felt any gratitude towards him. He'd turned up at Mycroft's office as arranged, only to find that Mycroft wasn't there, not for the first time. Anthea apologised with cheery insincerity.

"He had to go the Belgian embassy urgently," she said. "He hoped it wouldn't take long, but according to his last text, there's been a minor diplomatic incident, so he might be delayed."

"If he's texting, it must be serious," said John. "But I might as well wait, I've got nothing else on. How are you, Anthea?"

"Much the same as when you asked me last week."

"I'm trying to make conversation."

"I know," she replied, smiling. "I can find you something to read, if you're that bored."

"I brought a book," John said, fishing it out of his coat pocket. He was used by now to waiting around for the Holmeses.

Anthea was mentally logging the book, he knew, as an extra data point for Mycroft: 'John Watson was last seen reading George MacDonald Fraser's _The Pyrates_ '. Probably also looking down at him for choosing something so frivolous. He'd noticed a month or two ago that she was simply reading things on her BlackBerry, rather than typing, staring in absorption at the screen. Cheekily, he'd craned his neck to have a look, and to his surprise she'd let him see what she was reading.

"Arabic?" he'd asked, staring at the unfamiliar script.

"Persian," she'd said, "It's Ferdowsi's _Shahnameh_. The Iranian national epic."

"Right," he said. There was nothing else he could say that wasn't going to sound completely and utterly stupid.

Anthea read Persian poetry for fun, and was invaluable to Mycroft, and that was almost all he knew about her, even now. No, he did also know that her real name was Mary. She'd let that slip at one point.

"Too ordinary," she'd said. "My parents' imagination didn't extend to names."

"It's a nice name," he'd replied. "My first-" He'd stopped abruptly.

"Your first wife's name was Mary Morstan. She died of bone cancer in 1996. You'd been married three years." She rattled out the facts with complete lack of interest.

"Yes," he'd said. There wasn't a lot else he could say. It was strange telling people about Mary nowadays; it was so long ago that it scarcely seemed part of his own life anymore. He was used to embarrassment when he did talk about her. He wasn't used to indifference.

As John started trying to read his book, conscious of Anthea still watching him, he wondered again why he kept on trying to make friends with her. Well, because that was what you did. Tried to get on with people, get to know them, be friendly. Mycroft understood that, even if Anthea and Sherlock didn't. Though of course, Mycroft's friendliness was just a facade.

No, that was wrong. He was being unfair and grumpy. It had been a tough couple of weeks, and he hadn't slept much, and Sherlock was being impossible, and he'd been looking forward to talking to Mycroft, it'd help him to unwind a bit. But Mycroft, the poor sod, was probably having a hell of a time sorting out Belgium, if not the whole EU. It put several severely charred tea towels into some kind of perspective. Still, he might as well hang around. Maybe Mycroft would have some entertaining stories about famous Belgians.

It was at that point that Mycroft came into the room, a blood-stained handkerchief covering most of his face.

***

“What the hell?” John said, jumping up. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Mycroft said in a muffled voice. He looked to John’s experienced eyes as if he was about to collapse, and he bustled him off to the building’s first-aid room. Not anything really serious, he thought as he and Mycroft followed Anthea, maybe a nasty fall? But there was something not quite right. Mycroft was moving as if his legs had been filleted of bones, so John got him lying on the couch once they got to the first-aid room. As he suspected, Anthea promptly disappeared off back to her BlackBerry, but at least if Mycroft did faint now, John wouldn’t have to manhandle him off the floor.

“Right,” he said, rapidly grabbing a bowl of water and some wipes , “Let’s have a look at your face.”

Mycroft slowly removed the handkerchief. Messy, thought John. Smashed lip, bit of a nose-bleed, cut near the eye, red marks on the cheek. Oh God, he suddenly thought…

“Mycroft,” he blurted out, “has someone been beating you up?”

***

So that was what could come under the heading of a diplomatic incident, thought John. A Belgian attaché losing the plot and attacking someone.

“Why did he do that?” he asked.

“His brother was caught up in the Tournai carousel fraud case Sherlock cracked last year." Mycroft's voice was slow and slightly blurred.

“Another circus case?” said John.

“It involved VAT and carbon trading permits,” Mycroft said. “Technically fascinating. It took...a lot of work to get M. Ganshof and his associates in jail.”

“And his brother decided to take it out on you. Good job he didn’t know much about fighting,” said John. “OK, try to relax, Mycroft, all I’m doing is cleaning some of the blood off. Just lie still.”

Mycroft was actually shaking, he realised, his breath rapid, his pupils wide. Particularly bad stress reaction, thought John, probably attacked unexpectedly and not used to physical aggression. He was as quick and gentle as he could be, and fortunately there was nothing too serious, as far as he could see.

“Your teeth are OK, are they?” he asked, once he’d finished on Mycroft’s face. “And there’s no bleeding from inside your mouth?”

“No.”

"He was targeting your face, obviously, but did he hit you anywhere else?"

"I'm, I'm not sure. Shoulder, chest...I can't remember."

"Take your shirt off and I'll check if there's any bruising or cuts."

"I, I...no," said Mycroft, and he was blushing, John noticed. Embarrassed about his body, was he? Probably best to leave it.

"Fine," John replied, "if you'd rather not. But if you do find you're bruised or in any persistent pain elsewhere, make sure you get checked out. I don't think it's likely there's any internal damage, but you don't want to take chances."

"It's nothing, you really needn't bother," Mycroft gabbled. There was a kind of desperation in his voice now.

"I've got you cleaned up," said John, "so I'll give you some painkillers and then you can just lie there till you feel a bit better." Don't overreact, he told himself. But it was surprisingly off-putting to see Mycroft's composure completely destroyed, like seeing a statue weep.

"Are you sure you didn't lose consciousness?" he asked.

"Positive. I called out whenI was attacked, a secretary came in and then M. Ganshof stopped the attack, and just stood there. I obviously wasn't going to get anything out of him at that point, so I left and came back to the office."

"And the embassy staff, your driver, they didn't do anything to help you?"

"I told them I was fine, there was no need."

What kind of world did Mycroft live in, John thought, where someone bleeding just says they're OK and everyone ceases to worry?

"I didn't lose consciousness, John," said Mycroft. "There's really no need to concern yourself. My staff can handle the rest."

"Fine," said John resignedly.

"Thank you very much for your help," said Mycroft. "I'm, I'm sorry you had to see this. It's not...ideal."

"Don't worry," said John, "but just take care of yourself, OK?"

***

"Can you keep an eye on Mycroft? Or maybe he ought to go home?" he said to Anthea on the way out. He presumed Mycroft had a home to go to. "He sounds really shaken."

"Right," she said calmly.

"Did you know he'd been attacked? Did he say that when he texted you?"

"Oh yeah," she said, "but he's obviously not badly hurt."

"It's not just the physical side," said John. "Some people can be very affected psychologically by being the victim of a crime."

"I hardly think Mr Holmes would consider himself a victim, John," Anthea said. "Is there anything else you need to tell me?"

"No," said John. "That's it."

***

That explained Mycroft's embarrassment, John thought as he went home. He'd been letting the side down, hadn't he, not taking it like a man? And, oh, that was why he was so freaked out by John in particular, because John was an army doctor and Mycroft hadn't been a brave little soldier. He'd been unexpectedly attacked and he'd frozen. No marks on his hands, so he hadn't hit back, been too shocked even to defend himself properly.

He should have told him it didn't matter, that it was quite normal to react like that. That being able to fight someone off didn't come automatically to everyone - it took training, perhaps a certain natural stupidity, not to panic in those circumstances. That it was fine for Mycroft not to be James Bond.

*** 

"There's blood on your cuff," Sherlock announced from his position on the sofa about thirty seconds after John came into the flat. "Interesting time?"

"It's Mycroft's," John replied, on the odd chance that Sherlock couldn't deduce that immediately.

"Excellent. I hope he's lost a lot."

"Sherlock!" John said, advancing on him crossly. "That's a horrible thing to say. He got attacked by some mad Belgian diplomat."

"Ferdinand Ganshof, you mean?"

"You knew about him?"John demanded, sitting down on the coffee table, before he was tempted to start shaking Sherlock.

"I knew he was based at the Belgian embassy," Sherlock replied, closing his eyes. "Did he give any useful information before attacking Mycroft? I hadn't thought he was worth investigating, but if he's turned violent, he's rather more interesting."

"Since you ask, Mycroft's not badly hurt. Oh I forgot, you didn't ask."

"If anything serious had happened, someone would have informed me," said Sherlock, "and, of course, I'd have spotted it immediately in your demeanour. So, minor injuries only, but he'd be distressed, no doubt. It's one of the reasons Mycroft doesn't like 'legwork', as he puts it, he's a terrible coward."

"Anyone would be upset at getting attacked unexpectedly." Sherlock gave him a quizzical glance. "OK, you'd think it was fun. Normal people don't. It's not surprising he was so stressed out."

"Well, I'm sure you being there was a great comfort to him," Sherlock said sardonically. John sighed and went off to get himself a cup of tea. It really wasn't easy to cope with Sherlock sometimes. No wonder Mycroft was a bit...odd.

***

It wasn't Mycroft's asexuality that John considered odd. Once he'd found out about Sherlock, and read up a bit on the topic in self-defence, it seemed pretty clear to him that Mycroft was asexual as well. No current relationship, no trace of any interest in one. And the general sense John increasingly got around Mycroft of someone running away from something, the hairline cracks in Mycroft's flawless facade. The awkwardness about physical contact probably fitted in somewhere as well, he suspected. Mycroft had long since given up shaking John's hand, and he was always a bit twitchy around Lestrade. Anthea, of course, wouldn't voluntarily touch anything that didn't have a keyboard, and Sherlock always kept his distance, literally, from Mycroft. John wondered how Mycroft coped with other people, but it wasn't really his business.

John did wish he could reassure Mycroft, though, that it didn't matter to him what he did or didn't do in his private life, the way he'd told Sherlock. But Mycroft, unlike Sherlock, didn't give you a chance to make that kind of comment, to ask, even think, that kind of question. Mycroft ate – John knew that – and presumably he also slept, and did other things that normal people did. But the thought of him even having a home, rather than simply being locked securely away in an office safe at the end of each day was hard to contemplate. He was a brilliant man, but he didn't seem to have much of a life. Which was a shame.

***

John found himself thinking a lot about Mycroft in the next few days. Worrying about him, whether hewas OK. But there was no point in phoning or texting, he'd just get bland answers. He needed to go and see him himself. He phoned up and eventually persuaded Anthea to give him an appointment for the week after. (Mycroft was allegedly busy with Swedes till then. Or just possibly swedes.)

Mycroft's face was still bruised and swollen from the attack, but his manner was back to normal.

"So glad you could come to see me. I gather that Sherlock made rather a mess of the Munro case, slow at working out the African-American connection. Though I'd have thought that would have been immediately obvious from the wife's taste in music."

"Sherlock would have got there eventually," said John. "It was just...well, anyhow, that one is really not going on the blog ever. He didn't speak all the way back from Norbury. Or for most of the rest of the week."

"If there's anything I can do..."

"He'll be fine. But I really wanted to check that you were OK, " John said, aware he sounded foolish. "After the... incident at the embassy." God, now Mycroft had got _him_ talking in euphemisms.

"As you can see, impressive but superficial injuries," Mycroft replied. "Fortunately, diplomats aren't trained in unarmed combat."

"Nor are you," said John abruptly. "Maybe you should be."

"It's unnecessary," said Mycroft. "And I really don't think we need to dwell on this unpleasantness. Is there anything else we ought to be discussing?"

John was suddenly angry. It was just typical bloody Holmes behaviour, pushing you away when you got too close, spotted their vulnerability. He'd once only realised Sherlock was wounded when a dog tried to lick blood off his shirt.

"Mycroft, you got injured!" He was almost yelling by now. "You could have been quite badly hurt, and you're not used to that kind of thing."

There was a sudden tension in Mycroft's body, a frozen wariness. Was this what he had done when Ganshof was about to attack, his way of bracing himself? How was it going to help if John got angry? He took a breath, forced his temper down, and said, as slowly and calmly as he could: "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have shouted. It's just...you're a friend, Mycroft, and I don't want you getting into situations you can't handle."

It was probably the most unexpected statement he'd ever made about Mycroft. From the stunned look on Mycroft's face, even he hadn't foreseen it.

"Thank you," Mycroft said at last. "I'm honoured that you consider me as a friend...." He ground to a halt.

He was a Holmes, John remembered, they weren't used to friendship.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you. I just wanted to say, it's fine if you don't like violence, if it worries you. I, I don't think any less of you because you're not James Bond."

"Or Sherlock," said Mycroft. "Who doubtless pointed out how much he would have enjoyed being attacked by M. Ganshof."

"Did you know that he knew that Ganshof was on the staff of the embassy, and the connection to his case?"

"So did I," Mycroft said calmly. "That's why I agreed to meet him. But I was expecting his assault to be verbal rather than physical."

"You deliberately went to talk to him when you knew it might turn nasty?" said John.

"I'm used to it," Mycroft replied, "And there was a small chance that I might get useful information."

He had his own peculiar brand of courage, thought John.

"I'm afraid my distress was as much at my own miscalculation as the assault itself, "Mycroft went on. "I made rather an idiot of myself."

"It happens," John replied, smiling. "Look at me. I can kill a man with my bare hands, or I can save his life. But I still can't get a vending machine to give me a coffee with milk and one sugar."

"Such are the trials of life, John," Mycroft said, giving an answering smile. "And talking of trials, is it really the case that Sherlock is now practising mime?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John may have become friends with Mycroft, but there are a still an awful lot of things he doesn't know about him.

Something had shifted between John and Mycroft, although it was difficult to pin it down. The next time Mycroft had found John sitting, waiting for him, reading a book, he'd smiled and said: "Have you ever tried Saki?" And at John's puzzled glance added: "An Edwardian short story writer, wrote rather black comedy. I know you don't have much time for reading, but he's really better in small doses."

"Sounds interesting," said John. Two days later a parcel arrived at the flat, but it hadn't been quite what he expected. Not a beautiful leather-bound volume, which he would have been embarrassed to accept, but a small, slightly battered paperback. The note inside read: _Waterproof pages would be best, of course, but it won't matter if you get bloodstains or mud on this. I suggest starting with 'The Stampeding of Lady Bastable'. Mycroft._ When John did, he realised that someone had imagined the more chaotic side of Sherlock 100 years early. It was hilarious, but he did wonder how Mycroft could bear to read it.

***

He'd asked Mycroft that, the next time they saw him, because the 'debriefings' had gradually moved beyond just discussing cases.

"It's surprising how appealing a good author can make fictional characters who in real life would be intolerable," Mycroft had replied. "I can't imagine that living with Edward Rochester, or indeed, Juliet would be enjoyable."

"At least Juliet wouldn't keep heads in the fridge," John said. "But wouldn't she have rather too many poisoned drinks around?" He always felt uncultivated next to Mycroft, and he sometimes suspected Mycroft was surreptitiously trying to educate him. A lot more subtly than Sherlock's demands that he urgently read up on Chinese porcelain or Sudanese cuisine, of course. But it probably irked both of them that he was so ignorant, so ordinary. Though he did at least know who the current Prime Minister was.

***

Despite their friendship, he'd still been a bit surprised when Mycroft had invited him out for a meal a few months later.

"What's this in aid of?" he enquired when Mycroft phoned.

"I've had the restaurant reservations for a while, but unfortunately Mr Melas was advised to give up meat by his doctor last week, and Simpson's would be distinctly uncomfortable for him under the circumstances. It seemed a shame to waste the table, and I suspect Sherlock won't have taken you there."

"I should warn you," Mycroft said, smiling, when John arrived, "that this meal is officially on record as being entertainment for an informant. You are therefore required to be entertained, and I am required to gain some useful information."

"I'm not going to be able to tell you anything you didn't know already, unlike your Mr...Melas, was it?"

"Yes. He's an interpreter, has some very useful contacts within the Cypriot community. I assisted him in a rather confidential matter a few years ago, and since then he's proved very helpful."

"More than I can be, probably."

"Well, if you really want to help, there is one thing you can do. I would recommend the beef, by the way, it's the second best in London." Mycroft's dieting was obviously in the off phase, thought John, which would make the evening easier.

"What would you like me to do?"

"Tell me about Afghanistan," said Mycroft quietly.

"You, I...you must know everything there is to know about that, far more than me," John protested.

"Yes, but I've never been a soldier. I haven't started wars, as Sherlock claims, but I have advised those who have. I don't need to know about strategies or chances of success. I need...I would ask you to tell me what it is like to go to a far-away country to fight, and perhaps to die."

***

John wasn't sure afterwards whether he'd told Mycroft the right things, or even if Mycroft knew quite what the right things were. He'd softened it, of course, you had to for civilians. But he could see Mycroft absorbing not just the information, but something of the feel of army life. Mycroft's sudden stillness when John talked about how Trooper Paul Carter had died protecting John's convoy, as the terrifying thought crossed Mycroft's mind: _Could I have stopped this somehow? Was it my fault that man died?_ John recognised the expression. It was one he'd seen in his own mirror too many times.

He changed the subject deliberately onto the food at that point, because it wasn't just Mycroft who found some things hard to talk about. Though the really good Pinot Noir they were drinking did encourage openness.

"Why does no-one give me decent wine when they want to interrogate me?" he found himself enquiring of Mycroft a little later. "All they ever do is tie me up and hit me."

"Very unimaginative of them," Mycroft replied smoothly. "But criminals are limited like that. And they're cheap as well. You couldn't get this quality of revelation with a five pound bottle from Sainsbury's."

"It's really good stuff. I don't normally go for red, don't go for wine that much actually, but this is good. And the meal's amazing. So where do you get the best roast beef in London? Because I can't believe that anything can be better than this stuff."

"The Diogenes Club."

"That weird...um, unusual club? Sherlock mentioned it to me."

"I'll take you there some time," Mycroft replied, smiling benevolently across at John, "but obviously, not when I'm trying to get information out of you."

"So it's true that you're not supposed to talk to people there?" John asked, grinning. "When Sherlock told me that, I couldn't believe it."

"It's true. I only go there occasionally now, but there are times when it is refreshing. Strangely calming, helps one focus. Of course, I have only ever taken Sherlock there once." The edge in his voice suggested that that had been the occasion of another one of the great Holmes v Holmes arguments.

"Though presumably, if you did take him there," John said hastily, "you could interrogate him by blinking in Morse Code and he could reply by miming the answers."

"Oh, we both know sign language," Mycroft replied more cheerfully. "Though Sherlock is prone to putting in Americanisms, just to irritate me."

"There are different dialects of sign language?"

"I only know British and American, but Sherlock can sign in French as well."

"French sign language has more shrugging, presumably," John retorted. OK, maybe slow down on the wine a bit, he told himself. There was silence for a while, as they worked their way through more of the meal. It was very...civilised being with Mycroft, John thought. No-one to chase, no-one likely to throw stun grenades at them, the expert but unobtrusive service...

"You know what's good about Simpson's?" he said. "Two blokes can have a meal together, and they don't assume you're dating. Why is it waiters don't pay any special attention to me when I'm on a real date, but the minute I go somewhere with Sherlock, they think it's serious?"

"If you consider the matter logically," Mycroft replied, in a portentous, but very slightly blurred voice, "then the variable is clearly Sherlock. And the reason, John, is that he looks like the kind of man who can not only drive straight women mad, but also turn straight men gay."

He was not going to say anything, thought John. He was just going to give a calm, polite smile...while the blood rushed to his face.

"Observation or deduction?" he said at last, in a slightly choked voice.

"Hypothesis," Mycroft said smoothly. "You have strong emotional ties to one another, an urge for...physical closeness on your part wouldn't be unheard of."

"It was one time and I was pretty damn drunk. But I sobered up very, very quickly. I should have realised that when Sherlock says he's not interested in something he means it."

"Not all of us share the same tastes. But your friendship has clearly survived."

"It, it doesn't bother me if someone's like that," said John. "Really it doesn't. I just didn't understand, that was all. Now I do." He wanted to say more, to tell Mycroft that he'd worked out about him being asexual as well, but he couldn't think of how to say that diplomatically. Still, at least he could reassure Mycroft that he was over Sherlock.

"Sherlock was a complete aberration, don't know what came over me," he said. "Though maybe I'd be better off if I _was_ gay, given my abysmal lack of success with women."

"Oh dear," said Mycroft, slightly stiltedly. "I'm sorry to hear about that."

"Don't pretend you didn't know," John replied, grinning at him. "I presume that somewhere in MI5's files or your own private ones there's a huge folder detailing the failures of my love life back to the first girl I ever kissed."

"Not quite that. But it does have a few details about both your marriages."

"38, two failed marriages, invalided out of the army, no permanent job," John said, and found himself reaching for his glass again. "And I wonder why women aren't rushing to meet me."

"Two failed marriages? I thought it was widowed once, divorced once? Officially."

"Mycroft, I'm sure it's in my files that my marriage to Mary was dying before she was. We were talking about splitting up just before she got ill."

"But then you stayed with her."

"I couldn't walk out on her then, could I? Besides, it wasn't that we didn't love one another. It was just that she couldn't stand the thought of me joining the army, and I knew by then that I had to. So, next time round, I found myself someone happy to be an army wife. No worries about that, Pat could cope with me being away on tours of duty just fine. Principally by having affairs, it turned out. And since I got back from Afghanistan, well, things haven't really worked out, have they?"

He expected sympathy at this point, possibly even wanted it, even as he dreaded the banalities. He'd had lots of tripe from Harry every time a date hadn't worked out, about there being lots more fish in the sea, and how he needed to get back into the game. None of it helped. Mycroft just sat there silently, but there was a quality of sympathy in his silence that was refreshing. John drained his glass, and then the words suddenly came tumbling out of him, that he'd thought more and more often.

"Don't expect I'm going to find anyone now," he said abruptly. "You couldn't...there isn't space in my life, with Sherlock around. Even if he didn't wreck half my dates, who would want to get involved with me? My life's too dangerous, too crazy, not normal enough."

"Some jobs require you to be married to them," said Mycroft, and there was infinite understanding in his voice.

"I know, but I still can't help feeling she's out there somewhere," said John. "The woman of my dreams." There was a strange expression on Mycroft's face now, he realised: some weird combination of understanding, pain...embarrassment, perhaps. Perhaps the most alarming part of the expression, however, was John's distinct sensation that there was more than one version of Mycroft expressing it...

*** 

Sherlock, who could move noiselessly when he chose, decided to spend the next morning stomping around 221B as loudly as possible. John cursed silently, his head aching, and tried not to react. Which, of course, simply led Sherlock to increase his level of provocation.

"I'd suggest cocaine, next time," he announced as John forced himself to drink some herbal tea. "Far fewer after-effects than a drinking bout with Mycroft."

"It wasn't a drinking bout, it was a civilised meal."

"Well Mycroft may have civilised when he brought you back, but you were a drunken, emotional mess," said Sherlock. "I told you Mycroft was a dangerous man. Still I suppose you got off lightly. I'm surprised you didn't wake up to find yourself chained in a dungeon somewhere."

John sighed and decided it was _his_ turn to go and sulk on the sofa.

***

There was a certain unspoken coolness to Mycroft when John turned up for their next meeting, so John decided that he'd better know the worst.

"I'm sorry I got so drunk a couple of nights ago," he said. "I hadn't realised... no, really I just screwed up, OK?"

"My fault," Mycroft replied smoothly. "I overestimated your...capacity slightly."

"I don't drink much nowadays. Not with how Harry is. I suppose I've lost my tolerance."

"It's hardly the worst social misdemeanour."

"OK," said John, because diplomacy was clearly not going to get him anywhere. "What did I say and how did it offend you?"

"You said nothing that I didn't know already from your file," Mycroft said blandly, which John mentally translated as: _You've upset me but I'm not telling you why_. He sighed and changed the subject.

There were times, he thought afterwards, when he really understood why the Holmeses didn't have many friends.

***

Things were back to normal by the next time he saw Mycroft, but the sniping between the brothers was particularly bad for the next few months. It was all conducted in code words of course. John knew that you never mentioned the word 'Norbury' to Sherlock, and he'd finally worked out the hidden meaning behind references to 'Basingstoke'. But there was a new name that got mentioned now, along with Irene Adler and Gloria Scott. Sherlock had taken to dropping the name 'Graham Henderson' into conversations with Mycroft, in a way that made Mycroft go suddenly quiet. Anger, distress? John wasn't sure. The obvious thing to do was to ask Sherlock what he meant, so John did that. Sherlock smiled and replied: "I suggest you get Mycroft to explain."

John could recognise a set-up when he saw one, so he decided an indirect approach was needed. The name didn't ring any bells with Lestrade, but when John mentioned it to Anthea, she was distracted enough to look up from her Blackberry.

"You know the name then?"

"Yeah. I believe he used to be in the Service. But that was before I came to work for Mr Holmes."

"So you don't know the details?" said John. "Or should I ask Mycroft?"

She looked at him, for once really noticing him, as if he wasn't simply a minor logistical problem.

"It would be better not to," she replied. "Let's just say that if Graham Henderson ever came back to this country, he'd be looking at a treason charge." She returned her focus to her keyboard.

So that was it, thought John. One of Mycroft's failures; no wonder he flinched when Sherlock brought it up. He went back to Lestrade then, asked him if he could dig up any details about Henderson's crimes. Because...because if Mycroft had been badly upset about this, was still upset about this, he needed to know exactly why.

***

"You trying to get me into trouble with this Graham Henderson thing, John?" Lestrade asked semi-belligerently, when they met in the pub a week later.

"God no, I'm sorry. It was just personal interest, not for a case. So you found something about him, did you?"

"A bit," Lestrade replied, sprawling back in his chair. "I found an old paper file back from 1997. A report of a civil servant called Henderson going missing. His sister hadn't heard from him when it was her birthday, got worried. A constable got sent round to talk to the neighbours, got told about a colleague of Henderson's called Holmes who might know something."

"And?"

"And at that point the investigation was very firmly stopped by someone higher up. Not clear from the paperwork exactly who. And a couple of hours after I'd got the file up from Records, they were phoning me up saying they needed it back, and I shouldn't have been allowed to see it in the first place." Lestrade paused, running his fingers through his hair. "If it's really serious, I can dig deeper, but I'd prefer not to tangle with the spooks for fun."

"I'm sorry," said John. "Thanks for what you've done. I didn't mean...sorry if I got you doing something stupid. I was just trying to find out a bit more about Mycroft, that was all. He intrigues me."

"Bloody terrifies me."

"I didn't think anything scared you," John replied, looking across at the burly figure.

"Not much does, no, but Mycroft could get me thrown out of my job if he really wanted to. And I'd...miss the Met. You're lucky you're with Sherlock. Mycroft's not going to touch you."

"He's not that dangerous," John said, "I'd count him as a friend."

"Yes, well you have a bloody weird taste in friends, Dr Watson." Lestrade paused, and then added: "But there's two other bits of information I have about Mycroft Holmes that might interest you, that won't be on file."

"Go on."

"Officially, I first met him in 2005, shortly after Sherlock started helping me with cases. Typical Holmes two for one offer. Unofficially, I met him once before that. Must have been ten years ago, no more than that. Fairly soon after this Henderson bloke disappeared, perhaps. He was at a pub on New Year's Eve and he was completely plastered, looked like he'd been drowning his sorrows for hours. I took him home so he didn't get mugged, and he passed out. I hung around for a bit, made sure he was OK, and then left him. He lived in a big house not that far from Baker Street then."

"Are you sure it was Mycroft?"

"Yeah. You don't forget that face easily, do you? But he never said anything when we met, maybe he didn't remember."

"You think his drinking might have something to do with Henderson's disappearance?"

"It's possible. The other thing is equally weird. Three years ago there was a bloke picked up for loitering outside Whitehall offices, looking for someone. They thought he was a terrorist at first, and then they decided he was a nutter, and somehow I got landed with him. His name was Petros Marangakis and he was some kind of hush-hush research scientist. He said he was looking for a man who'd recruited him into defence work at Oxford. He had a twenty-year old photo of a man called Martin Hughes. Only it was Mycroft in the photo, I'd swear to it."

"What happened?"

"Again, nothing. They decided he'd had some kind of breakdown, nothing criminal had happened, etc, etc."

"So how does that fit with anything?"

"It doesn't," Lestrade replied, ruefully. "Not claiming it does. But what I reckon it shows is that Mycroft Holmes has been involved with the spooks for a very long time, maybe even since he was a teenager."

"And?"

"And that kind of work does something to a man, changes him. Same as being a copper or a soldier does. You don't react to things normally. And the Holmeses aren't normal to start with. I, I like Sherlock, but I wouldn't get too close to him. Same with Mycroft. Friendship with either of them's a dangerous business." He shook his head abruptly. "Fuck it, I'm getting morbid. If you can put up with 221B, you can probably survive anything Mycroft throws at you. But watch your back, John."

***

John had long since got used to warnings about his friendship with Sherlock, but this was the first time anyone had warned him off being friends with Mycroft. Still, if he could deal with Sherlock, Mycroft was a lot easier to cope with. It did remind him, though, that he needed to sort out something about Christmas.

You couldn't associate with the Holmeses for long without realising that Christmases were particularly sticky. John would happily run into a burning building with Sherlock, or spend hours talking to Mycroft, but the thought of a week with them and their mother in the depths of Sussex terrified him. It'd be like that Noel Coward play that Mycroft had once given him spare tickets for. What was it called? 'Hay Fever', that was it. Only with more references to putrefying corpses, of course. Besides, if Harry was going to stay sober this Christmas, as she was planning to, she needed Big Brother watching her. So when Sherlock invited him down to Sussex, he cheerfully explained that he wasn't free.

He hadn't expected to get an invitation from Mycroft as well, and he was oddly touched. Mycroft had been so tentative about it, retreating into the formality of phrases like 'if you happened to be free', and 'I wondered if you might enjoy seeing Lamberley'. Maybe he wanted a buffer against Sherlock, John thought. Or maybe he knew what it was like to be on your own for Christmas.

"I'd like to," he said, and felt genuine regret, "but as I told Sherlock, I'll be at Harry's for the whole ten days."

"Ah. I hadn't realised that Sherlock had discussed the matter with you already," said Mycroft, in the too casual voice that suggested another fraternal bust-up approaching. Better warn Sherlock about that, John thought, rapidly turning the subject onto the logistics of protecting royal wedding presents.

***

"Mycroft invited me down to your mother's at Lamberley for Christmas," he told Sherlock, when he got home. "Why didn't you tell him I would be with Harry?"

"He invited you in the end, did he? How...inappropriate." Sherlock said, not looking up from his microscope.

"You invited me down as well."

"That's entirely different," Sherlock replied, and his pale eyes came up to scan John. John waited for the implausible but logical explanation, but Sherlock simply smiled a secretive smile, and said: "If you can't deduce why, there's no point in troubling your tiny mind about it."

***

Staying with Harry was a lot better than John had expected; he'd forgotten how entertaining she could be when she wasn't drunk, or arguing with their father. They ended up having a particularly good time at New Year, even though it did just involve sitting in her flat looking at old photos, watching crap telly, and drinking bizarre non-alcoholic cocktails.

"Right," Harry announced, when it was nearly midnight. "I need to make your New Year's resolutions." She grinned cheekily at John.

"Don't you mean your resolutions?"

"No. It's much better making New Year's resolutions for someone else. You can be far more realistic then. OK, John. so presumably your New Year's resolution for me is that I stop drinking."

"I thought I was supposed to make it for you, not you for yourself."

"So what it is then?"

John's mind suddenly went still, as he tried to put into words what he hoped for her.

"Not...it's not just the drink," he said at last. "I want you to remember every day that you're interesting, even when you're sober. Likeable, worth knowing."

"That was sweet, John," Harry said, and she suddenly hugged him. "You know, you may be a pain, but I'm quite fond of you, really."

"Fine," he replied. "OK, tell me the worst. What's your resolution for me, because I'm sure you've been planning it for ages."

"That you stop dating."

"Thank you. Any particular reason? That I'm too old, or too unappealing or what?"

"That you end up looking for the wrong thing," Harry said firmly. "You fall for pretty faces, and don't pay enough attention to what someone's like underneath. Don't look at me like that, John Watson, you know that's why it went wrong with Mary and Pat, never mind all your other girlfriends. What you need to do is get friendly with someone, and only then worry about the sex side."

"It's not easy making friends in my line of business."

"Sarah's really nice. I hoped you and she might get back together."

"She got put off by Sherlock in a big way, which is hardly surprising. Anyone I get involved with has to be able to cope with him, and most people can't."

"Maybe you should date Sherlock."

"He's not interested in sex. And I'm not interested in men."

"Sexuality is intrinsically fluid," Harry announced.

"So you'd consider sleeping with a man, would you?"

"Ugh, no," said Harry, her face screwing up. "But maybe your New Year's resolution should be to be more open-minded."

"And maybe yours should be to stop trying to sort out my love life," John replied. "OK, now, tell me. Is that red stuff in the jug really drinkable? Because I don't drink things with beetroot in them on principle."

***

The other really good thing about Christmas was that Harry had given him a bread making machine, as he'd suggested. John wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. They got through large amounts of bread, especially now he'd persuaded Sherlock that sandwiches weren't proper food, but necessary fuel during cases. But they were always running out, and ending up with horrible sappy stuff from the corner shop. Time for some better breakfasts, John decided.

The bread maker lasted three weeks and then Sherlock destroyed it. At least it no longer switched on, and nothing John did could change that. He swore copiously at Sherlock, which was satisfying, but didn't improve the quality of the toast. Then a few days later, a courier arrived with a package. The note attached simply said: _He can be so careless. Accept the apologies of our family. Mycroft_. It was, John noticed, exactly the same model as Harry had got him. Mycroft was, in so many ways, a thoughtful man.

Sherlock wasn't. John was incensed when this machine ended up smashed on the floor after less than two months. Sherlock made dismissive noises about a scuffle with a neo-Nazi, but John couldn't help wondering if he'd deliberately lured his opponent into the kitchen. It would be just like Sherlock to aim for a bit of extra destructiveness to spite his brother.

It was that thought that had him marching along to Mycroft's office to yell pointlessly about Sherlock. It wasn't as if Mycroft could do anything, and he probably had foreign governments to subvert. John knew he just had to resign himself to a future of unsatisfactory sandwiches, along with late night violin practice and no dating.

"There's one obvious solution," Mycroft announced, having listened with frankly incredible patience.

"They make ruggedised, armour–plated bread machines?" John asked, giggling, despite himself. It was just so stupid, he suddenly realised, to expect the British government to solve your bread supply problem.

"An ordinary bread making machine will be fine," Mycroft said. "It just needs a secure location. I'd be happy to have it in my kitchen."

John tried very hard not to blurt out: _You have a house?_ Instead, he managed to say: "You live in central London?"

"I live at 187 North Gower Street, in fact."

"But that's just the other side of Regent's Park-" John began.

"Fifteen minutes walk away from you," said Mycroft. "It's a very handy location. Shall I take you there this afternoon, show you how to get in?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the backstory here is inspired by my [Bodies in the Library](http://archiveofourown.org/works/290892), and Stellary's [Four Minutes to Save the World](http://stellary.livejournal.com/270.html)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is now sharing Mycroft's kitchen, but is Mycroft hoping for something more?

There was undoubtedly a reason why Mycroft lived so near to Sherlock and had never mentioned it, John thought as he arrived at North Gower Street. In a house that was almost the spit of 221B. A logical reason, he was quite sure.

"Ah, John. Do come in," Mycroft said, opening the door. "You may find a few resemblances to Baker Street, all the houses in this area are of a standard design. But unlike you, I'm lucky enough to have the whole of the house. And a rather...quieter taste in wallpaper."

He led John through into Mrs Hudson's room - no, where Mrs Hudson's room would have been. Here, there was a huge gleaming kitchen, all quarry tiles and chrome steel, like a mortuary for food. But with absolutely no dead things or experiments.

"Impressive," John said. "You could do...rather a lot of cooking here. Good cooking. Without risk of incidents." He'd never know himself to be prone to kitchen envy before.

"It's rather a waste," said Mycroft. "There's this and a dining room at the front on this floor, but I don't have the time or the inspiration for cooking or dinner parties. But as you can see, I have ample room for a bread maker."

"That'd be wonderful," said John, "if it's really OK. And, and is there somewhere I could store ingredients? A cupboard, a lockable cupboard, maybe?"

"I can assure you, John, any foodstuffs you leave here will neither be misappropriated nor contaminated."

"I'm sorry," John said, grinning, "I've lived with Sherlock too long. Once I've got the bread machine here, when would it be convenient to come round?"

"Anytime you like," said Mycroft, "Just let yourself in and out, I'll show you how to work the security systems."

"I don't want to disturb anything."

"I very seldom have visitors. When do you normally make your bread?"

"The thing's got a timer switch on it, so I tend to set it up to have something baked for about 7 a.m. Is it really OK to come round then? I mean on the days I'm not looking at corpses by that time in the morning? "

"That would be fine," Mycroft said, smiling. "I have breakfast about then, when I'm here, so it won't disturb me at all. But as I say, you'll have free access if you find another time is more convenient. Would you like to see the rest of the house, while you're here?"

"I'd be fascinated," John replied."So upstairs, the layout is similar to 221B?"

"Yes, except obviously the kitchen isn't needed, so that's a study. And as you may notice, there are eighteensteps up to the next floor."  


***

"It's slightly weird," John said, once they'd gone up. "It, it feels like someone's broken into our flat and forcibly tidied and redecorated it. Do you find it odd going into 221B?"

"There are far odder things there than some familiar architecture," Mycroft said. He paused and then added: "There are a couple of bedroom upstairs, as in your flat. I should at this point perhaps say...I know you sometimes stay at Sarah's when Sherlock is being..." His voice tailed off.

"The world's most impossible flatmate? Yes, I've kipped on Sarah's sofa a few times. I even ended up staying at Lestrade's once, when Sherlock was practising the trumpet."

"Ah, yes. I remember that week. I'm sure most of Baker Street does."

"He wasn't really that bad," said John. "It was just he kept on playing the Last Post, and that...got to me."

"What I was going to say," Mycroft went on smoothly, "is that if it's inconvenient to stay elsewhere, you're always welcome to come here. Or indeed, if any of the other facilities of 221B are out of action."

"Did I tell you about Sherlock dissolving the enamel on the bath last summer?" said John.

"Yes, you mentioned it. I didn't realise it was possible to do that."

"Hydrofluoric acid. I don't know what he thought he was doing. I wouldn't have minded so much, but it took ages to get the replacement plumbed in."

"If you'd only asked me, I could have arranged it. We have some very competent craftsmen working for us."

"Oh, it's OK. It did get me over my incipient swimming pool phobia. There's nothing like the prospect of a fortnight without a bath to make you realise that you can face going into a leisure centre after all, if it means you get a shower."

"You are a remarkable man, John," Mycroft said, beaming at him. John translated this out of the diplomatic as meaning: _You're extremely weird, but I don't mind_.

"Just the way things are when you associate with Sherlock," he said. "You said there was some kind of security system?"

It turned out to involve iris scans and voice recognition.

"Do you want my fingerprints as well?" John said cheerily, and got a slightly reproachful stare in reply.

"I'm sorry about this," Mycroft said, "but I've had to upgrade my security over the years."

"You've been here a long time?"

"Over 15 years now. My, how time flies. If you hold on while I update the system, we can give it a trial run." Mycroft bent over a terminal in his study.

"Anything else I need to know about?" said John. "Anything I shouldn't look at or do?"

"All the sensitive material in the house has additional security, so there's no need to worry. All that I ask is that you don't bring Sherlock here."

"Oh," John said, as it registered. "Are all these security measures to stop Sherlock breaking in?"

"Well, if it's inaccessible to him, it's not likely that anyone else could get unauthorised access. It's the one disadvantage of him living so close by."

He'd got the question wrong, hadn't he, John suddenly realised. Not why Mycroft lived near Sherlock, but why Sherlock had moved in near Mycroft, into an almost identical house.

"Sherlock used to live with you, did he?" he asked.

"He's stayed here for a couple of periods. He's very fond of the area, but he found some of the house rules here a little difficult to adhere to."

"He'd love that kitchen. He could fit half a lab in there."

"Exactly," said Mycroft.

***

He could hardly blame Mycroft if he'd kicked Sherlock out of no. 187, John thought, as he headed home. And anyway, it was more likely that Sherlock had stormed out of his own accord. So Mycroft was left in that big house on his own: no flat mate, no Mrs Hudson, no guests. A bit lonely, he'd have thought.

***

It became quite domestic very soon, in an extremely peculiar kind of way, a fixed point in the middle of the chaos of living with Sherlock. Most mornings now started with John going across to Mycroft's to collect the bread. Mycroft would be there, eating his breakfast, happy to chat for a little while before John headed home. It was friendly - civilised and satisfying - the smell of fresh bread, the peacefulness of it. And then John would go back to 221B and experiments strewn across the kitchen, and a note stuck on the fridge asking: _WHY WOULD A MAN CARRY A HADDOCK IN HIS POCKET?_ (The really alarming bit was that when John looked at the current suggestions, he ended up pencilling in an extra one).

He worried sometimes about the effect he was having on no. 187. He tried not to trample blood or mud into the house, but he suspected he still trailed a more invisible chaos into Mycroft's orderly life. But Mycroft seemed quite content; even when John turned up with pink hair one morning, he simply raised an eyebrow and commented:

"I think your natural colour suits you better."

"It was for a case," John replied.

"Of course. And I presume that Sherlock has once again underestimated the permanence of certain hair dyes."

"It was a lot brighter last night," John said. "I fluoresced."

"Dear me. Dare I ask what colour Sherlock is this morning?"

"He didn't have his hair dyed. The idea is I would attract attention in the bar and no-one would notice when he disappeared." It took a lot to make Sherlock less noticeable than John, but last night they'd managed it.

"I see," said Mycroft. "And did you enjoy being the centre of attention?"

"Bizarrely fun for a while, but not really me. I'm resigned to being in Sherlock's shadow."

"Oh I wouldn't say that, John," Mycroft said smoothly. "Some of us know who we prefer to associate with."

***

If Mycroft could cope with pink hair, John decided a couple of weeks later, he could cope with John in his dressing gown. Yes, he would look stupid going through the streets, but this was London, no-one worried about things like that.

"I've heard of dress-down Friday, but not dressing gown Friday," Mycroft remarked as John came into the kitchen of 187.

"It's cold out there and I haven't got a coat," John replied. "God, that makes me sound like a Victorian orphan, doesn't it? Some of my clothes got confiscated last night."

That brought a gasp from Mycroft, followed immediately by: "I thought you were investigating Eastern European connections to terrorist groups?"

"So did we," John replied, as he opened up the bread machine and took the loaf out. "But it turned out that rather than a ruthless gang smuggling fissile materials, what we'd discovered was a bunch of Hungarian prats trying to dismantle some old X-ray machines in the hope of getting something vaguely radioactive. And they managed to contaminate us when we were catching them. So immediately after the arrest, we had a hazmat team insisting we undressed because their Geiger counters had gone click once too often. They sent us home in orange boiler suits. I'm pretty much resigned to that kind of thing by now, but they practically had to tie Sherlock down before they could get his coat off him. They say we'll get all the stuff back, but not when. And my brown coat bit the dust after the Northern Outfall Sewer, and Sherlock traded my duffle-coat to a homeless bloke for information, so I'm temporarily coatless."

"I see." There was a pause. John looked across at Mycroft who was fiddling slightly nervously with his cup at the kitchen table.

"I wondered..." Mycroft said tentatively, and then stopped. "I thought perhaps..."

Oh shit, John thought, he's going to offer to buy me a replacement coat, isn't he? "Don't, please don't," he said, looking away in embarrassment. He was used to how generous the brothers could be, but this was too much. He just took things from Mycroft and never gave anything back. Here he was getting the loan of the kitchen and he hadn't even offered to cook Mycroft anything, in case he was on a diet.

At least I should give him some of the bread, he thought, he just sits here and smells it and never gets to have any. He reached for the bread knife on the opposite counter, and then turned back to find Mycroft standing by the bread machine. Just standing there, looking at John. And then at the knife in John's hand. And Mycroft's arms went up, protecting his face, and he was backing away, his face gone pale. Retreating into the dining room, and when John went towards him,Mycroft slammed the door. What the hell was going on? Was Mycroft having some kind of breakdown?

"Mycroft!" John yelled through the door, but he got no reply. He waited for a minute or two, but none of it made any more sense to his sleep-starved brain. He was standing here in his dressing gown in Mycroft's house, trying to sort out breakfast and Mycroft was freaking out and refusing to talk to him. He didn't know what to do. Maybe Sherlock would have some idea what had going on.

***

"I think I just accidentally threatened Mycroft with a bread knife," he announced as he walked into the kitchen of 221B, where Sherlock was squeezing what looked to be leaf mould in his hands.

"Disappointing it's only accidentally," Sherlock retorted and then suddenly stared at John. "Were you wandering round in your dressing gown at Mycroft's? Seems odd. Not to say provocative, even given the unerotic nature of that particular garment ."

"What are you talking about?"

"No, you're not wearing pyjamas, underneath, are you? Just your ordinary clothes. But with the dressing gown and the generally crumpled air, you do give the impression that you're either just out of bed, or just about to retire to it. No wonder you had to fend Mycroft off with a bread knife."

"Seriously, what are we talking about?" said John, sitting down. It was going to be a really bad day, he could tell already. Both Holmeses in completely doolally moods.

"That Mycroft's self-control was obviously particularly low this morning, so he made a pass at you. At which point you presumably scared him off."

"He didn't, I didn't...what?" said John, his brain finally catching up with Sherlock's comments. "Why would Mycroft make a pass at me?"

"Do I need to provide subtitles for the hard of thinking?" asked Sherlock. "He is attracted to you, and periodically makes an idiot of himself trying to engage your affection, despite your obvious complete lack of interest. Usual complete lack of interest. What made you use the bread knife this time?"

"Mycroft isn't attracted to me. Or at least not like that."

"John, what on earth is wrong with your thought processes this morning?"

"Mycroft's asexual," John said.

"Well he may have told you that, but it's just an excuse to get into your Y-fronts." Sherlock suddenly dropped the leaf mould in a soggy heap on the kitchen table, and appeared in front of John, grubby hands coming out to touch John's temples.

"John, surely not even you..." Sherlock came to a halt. "You did know he's been lusting after you ever since he met you? You must have done."

"Mycroft's gay?" Sherlock rolled his eyes at that. "I mean," John added, fending him off, "he's gay and interested in sex, rather than not."

"He's been celibate a very long time, but it's extremely clear what he'd like to do to you. Your IQis fractionally above Anderson's, John, it's not impossible even for you to have worked it out."

"I didn't-"

"Seeing, but not observing as usual. To give only the more obvious pieces of data, he summons you to a warehouse and flirts with you, is unnecessarily upset when I nearly get you killed at the pool, and then wants you to come in and get 'debriefed' regularly. Think about the connotations of that, John, if your mental processes are up to simple language games."

"He wanted to help us. With the cases, I mean."

"So he naturally spends all his time with you discussing cases? Rather than say, books and scandalous titbits from his work? He practically passes out from lust and fear when you minister to his wounds. He takes you out to meals and gets you drunk, he invites you to stay with him at Christmas, and then he offers you free use of his house. How much more obvious does he have to get?"

"He's friendly, yes, but he never touches me. He doesn't even shake my hand nowadays-"

"The discharge of electricity would probably stop his heart. Except, of course, that you are not interested, and have presumably made that abundantly clear by now."

"I didn't...I didn't realise I needed to. I thought we were just friends. I don't think of him in that way. I just presumed, because of the asexuality, even if I wasn't straight, he wouldn't be interested."

"What on earth made you think Mycroft was asexual?"

"Well, I knew you were and-"

"John, if you were capable of the slightest amount of logical thought, you could work out that asexuality is unlikely to be an inherited characteristic."

"I meant," said John, "that you're both terrible with emotions, and push other people away, and the work's all that matters, and the rest is just transport."

"For me it is," said Sherlock, "always has been. Mycroft is different. He wants that kind of...intimacy, though I have no idea why. He just has a singularly poor success rate in finding it, for obvious reasons. Sighing after you when you're not interested is bad enough. Sighing after you so ineffectively that you don't even realise is just pathetic. I suppose he was scared if he was more direct, that you'd just turn him down flat. He takes failure badly."

"Can't say what he really feels, and a sore loser. Yes, he's completely unlike you," John retorted. "So...God, if Mycroft didn't know when I went round that I hadn't realised..."

"What exactly did happen this morning? It sounds entertaining."

"I can't remember the details. He wanted some bread, no, I thought I should offer him some bread, so I found the bread knife-"

"And he thought you were going to attack him," said Sherlock. "Completely irrational, but if he'd keyed himself up to make some kind of advance on you, and suddenly got spooked by the prospect of violence, I'm not surprised he crumbled. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of you if you had a knife handy, and I'm not a coward like Mycroft is. Doesn't that timidity bother you, by the way?"

"No," John said. "People are what they are. Possibly bravery is just stupidity, and if you're too clever you can imagine what it would like getting hurt, how badly things can go wrong."

"Some of us manage to be both clever and brave," Sherlock said smugly.

"Yes, well the rest of us find people like that particularly irritating, so it's just as well you're a bloody asexual," John replied. "Now, can you stop pretending you're a walking pile of leaves, and just leave me alone. I need to think."

***

What the fuck do we do now, John thought, as he went into the living room. Well, obviously, what Mycroft would do was pretend it didn't happen. That was what diplomacy was all about, wasn't it? Oh yes, you may have threatened me with a bread knife due to heterosexual panic, but that doesn't mean we can't behave in a civilised manner next time we meet. But he couldn't leave it like that, he had to apologise, explain at least. He had to _go_ and apologise, because it wasn't the sort of thing you could discuss on the phone. And he had to do it right now, because 'sorry you thought I looked menacing' was bad enough, but 'sorry you thought I looked menacing last week' was ridiculous.

He kept his dressing gown on, because it was still cold outside and he might look stupid, but at least he didn't look dangerous. Well, at least as long as he stayed clear of knives. He went into no. 187, and walked into the kitchen. And there was Mycroft sitting at the table, drinking his coffee. He looked up as John came in, and the cup banged down too hard on the saucer, so that some of the coffee spilled out. Mycroft had gone very still otherwise, except that his eyes were going from side to side. Trying to work out if he needed to run, if John had somehow worked himself into a dangerous mood. Turned into another bloody Belgian.

"It's OK," said John, hurrying over to Mycroft, taking him by the shoulders, "I'm not going to hurt you." He could almost feel the terror radiating off Mycroft, and then Mycroft's grey eyes, dark with fear, looked up into his. Some peculiar instinct to comfort him kicked in, and John's arms went round Mycroft as he sat, and then he was pulling him towards him, one hand starting to stroke Mycroft's tidy dark hair. If he was holding him, hugging him, Mycroft would know it was all right, he was safe.

"It's OK," he murmured into the top of Mycroft's head, and then somehow he was kissing Mycroft's brow, soothing him, forcing Mycroft's terror away. "It's fine, I don't mind, it's OK, I wasn't, it wasn't like that, I didn't understand," he murmured between kisses. It felt good, he suddenly realised, just holding someone close after so long, the warmth and bulk of Mycroft's body, the feel of his smooth skin on John's lips, it was good, it was all good. He was doing the right thing. His lips angled down to meet Mycroft's, to kiss him properly...

The sudden screech of metal as Mycroft pushed his chair back was horrendous, confusing. And now Mycroft was gazing up at him, not tenderly, but as if he was insane, as if this was some kind of nightmare.

"What do you think you're doing?" he gasped.

"I thought this was what you wanted," John blurted out. Oh shit, he thought, wrong thing to say. All the energy seemed to drain away from his body, as if he was losing blood. And Mycroft was so pale - he looked like he was bleeding to death as well, breath hitching as if the air had got thin. John's hands had detached themselves from Mycroft without any conscious thought. He stood in front of him, blankly. I have to say something, he thought.

"I want it as well," he stammered out, "Really. Maybe. I don't know. It's OK, I don't-."

"You don't mind. I know," said Mycroft, with chilly courtesy. "That's...generous of you. Unfortunately, whatever you may want, Dr Watson, I'm sure it's not helpful under the circumstances. Please excuse me."He got up and walked out. John stood there, and listened as Mycroft went upstairs. There was no point in running after him, he knew that.

***

"Love's middle-aged dream disappointed yet again," Sherlock said as John arrived back in the kitchen of 221B. "There's still some bread left, but can I suggest you buy yourself a new coat? Assuming that Mycroft won't now be interested in buying you one."

John slumped onto the sofa, because maybe if he lay down he could convince himself it had just been a dream. It certainly didn't seem at all real.

"I take it that someone panicked," Sherlock, said appearing beside him, and handing him a mug of tea. Terrible tea, admittedly, John could guess that even without tasting it, but it showed willing. "Budge up, I want to sit down. And I'd give long odds that it was Mycroft panicking rather than you."

John curled himself up round his mug. Maybe he should put some sugar in it, he thought. It might make the flavour slightly less awful, and hot sweet tea was supposed to be good for shock. But it was easier not moving. He could probably stay on the sofa for the rest of his life.

"No, you can't," Sherlock announced, "I need it as a thinking place."

"How did you, oh, never mind."

"What happened?" Sherlock asked, in a tone of deep resignation. "You rushed round to Mycroft's, anxious to prove that you held no prejudice against him for his pathetic lust. And then?"

"We...I ended up kissing him."

"How very unrepressed, especially given you were sober. And he didn't fold himself into your manly arms as you showered his face with burning kisses?"

"He freaked out."

"Mycroft's inability to cope with emotional encounters never ceases to amaze me. Where were you kissing him?" Sherlock held up a hand in entreaty. "As in, spatial location within the house, not on his body. I have no wish to know the latter."

"In the kitchen."

"Probably not a good move."

"Sherlock, do you think you could either be helpful or just bugger off and leave me to sulk? Why not the kitchen?"

"I suspect it brought back too many memories of Graham Henderson."

***

John finished mopping up the tea he'd spilled over the sofa, and then sat on the coffee table. Sherlock detached himself from the mantelpiece, where'd he retreated from the tea flood, and started pacing up and down in front of John.

"How much did Mycroft tell you about Mr Henderson? I presume he did finally take my hints."

"Nothing, I didn't ask him. Anthea told me he was a traitor, and Lestrade dug out an old file. He defected thirteen years ago or so."

"He didn't defect," Sherlock said, spinning around abruptly and grinning, "It was far worse than that. He didn't run off to Russia with half of MI6's secrets. He ran off to the West Indies with half their pension fund."

"What?"

"He was the Service's head of accounts, set up a massive fraud. It wasn't just the pension fund; I gather he took millions from other funds of theirs as well. He'd been cooking the books for years, supporting his expensive tastes. Including his lover."

"Mycroft?" said John. It made a horrible kind of sense.

"They got involved soon after Mycroft came to work in London. The Service always tend to find their sexual partners internally, easier for security. And Mycroft was obviously... promising in many ways. Did it not occur to you to wonder _how_ Mycroft afforded a house in central London when still in his twenties?"

"Your family's well-off."

"Not that well off. It was Graham's money, or rather, as it turned out, the Service's money. So Mycroft was buggered from the start, and ended up being even more buggered. Because when things got too hot for Graham and he ran, an awful lot of suspicion fell on Mycroft. How had he not realised what was going on, especially given his own financial expertise? Had he been planning to run away with Graham and lost his nerve?"

"What happened?"

"His name was eventually cleared, or at least they decided to overlook the matter.And ironically, they couldn't prove the house wasn't legitimately his, Graham had cooked the books so comprehensively. So Mycroft has been rattling around in there ever since. I think he couldn't sell it at first, there was so much legal wrangling, and then he must have got attached to it. It's a nice house."

"So he's been sitting there and brooding about Graham for years?" He'd thought there was something odd about the house, no wonder Mycroft didn't like having people come there. "And the kitchen?"

"A particularly elementary deduction. There is a well-equipped kitchen and dining room in the house, but Mycroft does very little cooking or entertaining. From which you conclude?"

"That Graham was into that kind of thing. And that therefore the kitchen might have particularly painful memories for Mycroft. Why didn't Mycroft just change everything around? He hasn't been waiting for Graham to come back, has he?"

"No. I imagine it has a rather off-putting effect when your lover has comprehensively deceived not just his employer, but you. I swear Mycroft didn't know about the fraud, it would go against the few principles that he does have. He got hoodwinked, and I suspect it's the hit to his vanity that hurt him most of all. Leaving the kitchen much as it is was probably Mycroft's very discreet way of saying 'Fuck you, I don't care', to the memory of Graham."

"But it affected him a lot. Something like that, it must do. So he doesn't want to let anyone else get close to him again." It made Mycroft seem almost normal.

"You're not the only one with trust issues. I suspect he thought you were safe, he could lust after you from a distance. He didn't perhaps realise your talent for...friendship."

"And now?"

"Don't ask me," said Sherlock. "Not my area. You'll work something out eventually. No rush. Mycroft can hang around for years, we've established that."

***

It was 5.23 am when John woke up the next day. OK, that gave him just over an hour till he had to get up and collect the morning's loaf...oh shit. He curled up and tried to doze.

***

He was wiping the blood off Mycroft's face and Mycroft wasn't trembling this time, but lying calmly beneath John's gentle hands, it was all OK. But when he started to kiss Mycroft, Mycroft's lips started to bleed again and he couldn't stop the blood...

***

6.48 on the clock, he needed to get a move on, so he could get over to no. 187 before Mycroft went off to work. Oh, fuck!

***

"We're out of bread," Sherlock announced, as John dragged himself half-conscious into the kitchen just before 8 a.m. "If you want some toast, you'll have to go out to the shops."

"It's OK," John mumbled. "Not really hungry."

***

The dream the next night was worse. He was standing outside the embassy, he knew it was one, even though he couldn't read the name on the brass plate outside, and Lestrade was taking him by the arm, and saying, in that tightly controlled voice that he used when things had gone really seriously wrong: "I'm sorry, Mycroft's dead. There was nothing we could do. It was quick, he wouldn't have suffered, single stab wound to the heart."

"Can I see his body?"

"It's better you don't, John, it's really better if you leave right now."

***

He couldn't remember the dreams from the next few nights, he just knew he woke up sweaty and shaking. And on his own.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now John's realised he's fallen for Mycroft, he needs an extremely implausible and stupid plan...

Sherlock loomed up over John three days later, when he was staring doggedly at his screen, trying to think of anything to write on his blog that was worth saying.

"You're pining," Sherlock announced, "for Mycroft." He sounded startled and vaguely annoyed.

"Yes." There was no point in trying to conceal things from Sherlock.

"How strange. You'd better do something about it, it's distracting."

"I don't know what to do."

"I believe, under the circumstances, the conventional thing to do is go and have a long, serious talk with him," said Sherlock, managing to make this sound somehow deranged.

"I went round there," said John, "and the security system wouldn't let me in, said my iris scans were unknown."

"Ah," said Sherlock. "I can probably bypass that. I've always wanted a good excuse to try."

"Breaking into the house when someone's changed the locks? Not good."

"If you sit in Mycroft's office long enough, he'll turn up eventually."

"I certainly can't do anything with bloody Anthea around."

Sherlock sat down opposite John, pushing down the lid of his laptop and scrutinising him. John looked back, letting himself be deduced.

"Easiest to revert to where you were," Sherlock said at last. "I'm sure Mycroft could be persuaded to do that. And it'd get you access to the bread maker again."

"I don't want that!"

"Mycroft 's used not to getting what he wants. He copes with it admirably."

"I don't want to hurt him. He's my friend, a good friend. I, I care about him."

"And you find it necessary to express that care in sexual gestures, on the grounds that that is Mycroft's preference? Very odd."

"You don't understand, do you?" Trust Sherlock to be able to make a shitty situation even shittier.

"No. Sexual desire is strange enough, but infatuation is really peculiar. I take it that what you're trying to say, in a completely inadequate vocabulary, is that you are in love with Mycroft?"

"I suppose I am, yes." He waited for Sherlock to laugh at him, but Sherlock was oddly quiet, his face suddenly stilled, as if thinking, _remembering_...

"It would fit with the observable data," Sherlock said at last. "Therefore, you need to trigger your capacity for same-sex desire, at least sufficiently to satisfy Mycroft."

"You make it sound like an on-off switch," said John bitterly.

"Very hard to turn off, easier than you might think to turn on, under the right conditions," Sherlock replied. "I suppose one answer might be for you to sleep with me. That would convince Mycroft that you were amenable to homosexual activity."

"That's awful!" John said, and he found he was shutting his eyes, as if he could block out the thought that way. "You...it wouldn't be right."

"Curious," said Sherlock, and John could hear the lazy smile in his voice. "You would have done so six months ago, but now, because it would upset Mycroft, you find it distasteful."

"Anyhow," John said, and he looked up at Sherlock again - because he was not going to run away from this, he did not run away from anything, "You're not... you don't like sex!"

"No," said Sherlock, smiling knowingly back, "but I've had it sometimes. It's possible for the mind to fool the body. Convince your mind it's doing something it enjoys, and then your body can pump away happily."

"I wouldn't...I couldn't sleep with Mycroft when I was fantasizing about someone else," John replied. "Besides, he'd realise."

"Possibly. He has his weaknesses, but he's not entirely stupid. In that case, you need to fool both your body and your mind. The obvious answer is alcohol....So why didn't you jump Mycroft the time he got you drunk?"

"It, it didn't occur to me," said John. "I thought of him as a friend, that's all."

"Didn't stop you trying it on with me, did it? Oh, don't blush, John, that was an observation, not a moral statement. You'd already thought of me as a sexual object before that. Because of my physical appearance, you'd been sensitised to me. You need therefore, to start considering Mycroft as sexually desirable. Harder, I admit, but there are more unlikely objects of lust."

John put his head in his hands, starting to wonder if it would be easier if Sherlock just laughed at him.

"To put it in terms of love, rather than simple physiology, beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Sherlock went on remorselessly. "In the Middle Ages, they believed that love entered the soul through the eyes, and that therefore a blind man could not fall in love. Completely wrong, of course, but there's a germ of an idea there about the visual cortex and arousal. What you're going to do, John, is look at pictures of Mycroft. And you're going to think about his body as you look at them, holding him, kissing him, whatever floats your boat, as you once so oddly put it. And then when you see him next, you're going to get your bodies close to one another, and smell his skin, and remember those thoughts, and hope that you can somehow trigger enough of a hormonal overload for both your brains to switch off."

Sherlock paused, and then added abruptly: "Do you know how ridiculous sexual activity is, voluntarily clouding your mind like that? And this isn't even reproductive sex, it's completely pointless."

"It's what I want," John replied. "At least, I hope it is. It's certainly what Mycroft wants."

"The ways of the sexual never cease to amaze me," Sherlock replied. "But you'll do what I say?"

"I'm taking advice on sex from you? God, I'm desperate," John said.

"You have any better ideas?"

"Nope."

"Then you're taking advice from me. It's bad enough you being heterosexually lovelorn, but this is frankly much more inconvenient. How do I function if I don't have someone handy to send round and pester Mycroft?" Sherlock jumped up, and raced upstairs, calling down: "I'll go and find some pictures."

*** 

It didn't sound quite so bad if you thought of at as looking at old photos of a friend, rather than psychological priming, John thought, as Sherlock started digging through the neatly organised box of photos.

"I haven't kept many," he said, "and Mycroft increasingly preferred to be behind the camera rather than in front of it. That's the whole family in 1980. As you can see, I take after my mother, and Mycroft got landed with the Holmes bone structure."

"He's not that bad looking," said John. "It's...it's quite a nice face, once you get used to it. If not conventionally handsome."

"Indeed. It's a genetic lottery that I look like I do and he doesn't. I can't think why it bothers him. Beauty is a curse sometimes."

"Which is why, of course, you take such immense care to highlight your physical attractiveness. All the fancy coats, and look, this shirt brings out my eyes, and have you noticed my hands yet?"

"You think your sweaters make you look good," Sherlock retorted. "If I looked like Mycroft it would be much harder to get information out of people, or access to corpses. Though Mycroft does manage more of an air of quiet menace. It's the quietness I find tricky myself."

"You're incorrigible, Sherlock."

"I know," Sherlock replied, smiling. "Now, we are supposed to be persuading you of the dubious physical appeal of my older brother, so let's continue."

A tall, gawky boy, and then the chubby teenaged Mycroft, the beaky nose peering out of a rounded, softened face. A few from Oxford, where he'd obviously started to lose weight again, several showing a slightly camp languor that couldn't completely hide how much fun he was having. A snap of him punting, a stern look of concentration about the mobile brows. And then...

"That one isn't Mycroft, is he?" said John, looking at one from the aftermath of some ball, a tall man in white tie staring down his prominent nose at the camera, with his arm around a giggling blonde. "It looks like him, but it isn't. There's something different."

"That he's with a woman?" Sherlock said, smiling.

"No, it's not just that. I can't explain why, but I know it's not him."

"Interesting," said Sherlock. "You're really starting to observe him, aren't you? Officially, you're wrong. This is Mycroft Holmes, his name and details are on the back of the original print. Unofficially, Mycroft had some kind of doppelganger at Oxford, and this is him. I've never been able to find out who he was, and why he was necessary, but a surprising number of pictures of Mycroft at university aren't actually of him."

"Lestrade told me once that he'd met someone who had known Mycroft at college under the name of Martin Hughes," John said.

"I've heard that name as well, but I've never been able to track down the details. Any other aliases Lestrade had for Mycroft?"

"No, but he mentioned some bloke called Petros, who claimed to have know him."

"Not one I've come across. The one really interesting contact from Mycroft's university days is this man." Sherlock passed John a slightly unfocused snapshot of a tall, willowy, blond youth, with a rather sweet smile. "His name was Peter Harper."

"What's it now?"

"No, I mean he's dead. Died in rather embarrassing circumstances at Oxford in 1990. I think he was a boyfriend of Mycroft's, possibly an ex-boyfriend, and that Mycroft was somehow implicated in his death, though it was supposedly an accident. Unlikely he killed Harper himself, but you never know. And Mycroft still keeps his photo in one of his more secure hiding places. Took me a long time to find it and get this copy."

"Harper's wearing lipstick in the photo," said John. "At least I'm fairly certain he is."

"Mycroft's tastes may have been more exotic at the time. I suspect he's less fussy now. Most of the boyfriends I've been aware of – there were a couple at school, and one or two others when he first came to London -have been shorter and slighter than him - not hard, of course - and the majority have been blond. And here...is the legendary Graham Henderson." He handed John another photo.

Short, fair hair, rather unremarkable, slightly worn face. "Is there a resemblance?" John asked.

"Very slight. I suspect it was more the location that unsettled Mycroft.And he's not comfortable with surprises that he hasn't planned himself, always likes to have a few contingency plans up his sleeve."

"This is after Graham had gone," Sherlock went on, producing the next batch. "Mycroft was eating a lot at that point, and drinking quite heavily. And then he pulled himself together again, just in time to deal with my own crisis."

The waistline advanced and retreated in the rest of the photos, but John could almost see Mycroft stiffening over the years, the costumes and the mannerisms becoming more elaborate. There was the umbrella, and there was the pose with it, the next one showed the frosty, ironic smile. The dandyism of the Oxford days reappearing, with a benevolent aloofness attached. Untouchable Mycroft, the British government. Who had apparently spent more than a decade in some emotional limbo because he'd been callously dumped. He found himself leafing through the photos again, backwards this time, as if he could somehow catch the moment when Mycroft had been happy, keep him there, with that gawky, genuine, adorable grin...

"Well?" said Sherlock. "You're prepared to go through with it, aren't you?You're looking at him, trying to imagine doing _things_ with him, and it's not bothering you anymore, is it?"

"No," John said slowly. "I'm not sure it does. I want him to be happy, and...we can work something out. There's some spark between us, I think. I hope. I just have no idea what to do next."

"Whatever you normally do on your dates," Sherlock replied. "Though ideally with a little more taste involved. Mycroft may be besotted with you, but he hasn't lost all refinement."

***

John couldn't remember the last time he'd been so nervous before a date, well, a meal out with a friend, which was absolutely not a date, unless it happened to end up being one. It had taken hours to work out the restaurant – good food, but not too pricey, owner didn't know Sherlock - and to nerve himself for the casual invitation to Mycroft, with some nonsense about no hard feelings, and owing him a meal.

And then, of course, it was easy. Mycroft accepted, and when he turned up, was urbanely complimentary about John's choice of restaurant. He promptly launched into a slightly indiscreet anecdote about what the staff of the Canadian High Commission had got up to over Christmas. What had he been worrying about, thought John. Mycroft and he were friends, nothing had changed, it was fine.

But then, when they were waiting for dessert, John put out his hand towards Mycroft's, which was tracing patterns on the tablecloth, as he talked about his trip last autumn to Carcassone. Mycroft had pulled away with a reflex speed that John hadn't realised he possessed. And suddenly there was an invisible upper class force field around Mycroft that said "Hands off, riff-raff". Mycroft the hermit crab, retreating into his shell, even as his flexible voice began to discuss the great cassoulet recipe debate.

He had to say something, thought John, but he had no idea what, especially given all Mycroft's hang-ups. It was hard enough to tell anyone: 'Look, I know I haven't been sexually interested in you, even though we've known each other for ages, but I am now starting to wonder whether I might perhaps fancy you.' Maybe he could start with some platitudes about sexual fluidity, and how Harry and Sherlock had got him thinking beyond simple gay/straight divides.

 _Oh shit_. Sherlock. He could hardly say he hadn't realised he could be attracted to men, when Mycroft knew he'd come on to Sherlock. He couldn't even remember what he'd said to Mycroft about that. Maybe something about him being drunk at the time.

It had mainly been the drink, he thought. It was the only time he'd ever chased a suspect when drunk, because Sherlock had dragged him out of a supposed date that had already gone so badly wrong that he was sitting on his own, trying to drown his sorrows, by the time he got the text. And then they'd broken in somewhere, and chased some bloke, and caught him on the Embankment, and he'd had the diamond bracelet on him just like Sherlock had said.

And the police had come and taken the bloke away, and John had been staggering around because the fresh air had really been getting to him at that point. And Sherlock had caught him under the arms to support him, and he'd started snogging Sherlock, because Sherlock was just so bloody beautiful when he'd solved a case, and John hadn't had any action earlier, and he was almost completely out of it on alcohol and adrenaline.

It was amazing, he remembered, how quickly you could sober up when dropped so hard onto a chilly pavement it left bruises. And then he'd got a ten minute lecture from Sherlock on the vileness of sex. Not one of his better experiences, he'd really prefer not to discuss that with Mycroft.

"Are you all right?" Mycroft's voice broke into his thoughts. "You seem rather...preoccupied."

"I'm sorry, I was just thinking about Sherlock," John's mouth said, before his brain could catch up with it. Oh shit, he thought, not the right answer.

"Of course," said Mycroft, in his haughtiest voice. "So tell me, John, is it true that for his latest case, he's planning to go undercover in an advertising agency?"

***

It wasn't going to work, was it, thought John, as he went home. His views might have changed, but Mycroft's hadn't. He didn't want pity sex from John, and he'd somehow convinced himself that was all that was on offer. And John didn't know what he could say that would change his mind. He wasn't good with words, he was better with actions.

Which was why Sherlock's plan probably was a good idea. Mycroft's reluctance to touch John suggested that whatever his mind might think, his body, given a chance, might decide that thirteen years was far too long. And as for John himself...he was pretty certain now that with a bit ofadrenaline flowing, he could manage some enthusiastic kissing of Mycroft at the very least: the army had him doing far more unlikely things when fired up. But it was just how you got to Point B, snogging Mycroft senseless, without freaking him out. Number 187 had too many memories of bloody Graham Henderson. And if he tried something with Mycroft at 221B, it could easily turn into the sort of nightmare that would make Mycroft decide on lifelong celibacy. But if he started kissing Mycroft in public, he'd be far too embarrassed to respond.He needed a clever plan...

No, he suddenly realised. If he tried to come up with a clever plan, Mycroft would foresee it, he could always think three moves ahead. What John needed was an extremely implausible and stupid plan. Stupid and utterly disruptive to Mycroft's defences, but without scaring him off.

Oh, he had it, the ideal place. If he could just get Mycroft to take him there.

***

"The Diogenes Club, John?" Mycroft's voice on the phone was benevolently repressive. "Do you really think you'd enjoy going there?"

"I've wanted to see it for ages, after all I've been told about it," John replied. "And you did say it had the best roast beef in London." He tried to fill his voice with carnivorous gluttony, sound as if he hadn't had a decent meal for weeks. Which wasn't even too far from the truth.

"Very well," said Mycroft. "It is certainly a memorable experience, and the food is excellent. But you will need to read and adhere to the rules."

***

"I see Sherlock 's advice on clothing has at last paid dividends," Mycroft commented as John arrived outside the Diogenes a couple of evenings later. "That suit is far more flattering on you than the previous one."

"And I've got a tie on," said John coolly. He'd known that he couldn't pass this outfit off as dictated by either his own dress sense or budget. Just as Sherlock had immediately worked out exactly why John was going to the Diogenes, and promptly offered to help. "And my shoes are polished. And didn't Diogenes go round in filthy clothes anyhow?"

"The Victorians who founded the club had rather different ideas about austerity from the ancient Greeks. You've read the club rules, I hope?"

"Very carefully," John replied, which was true. "Silence within the building, members must ignore each other at all times. But a member doesn't have to ignore his own guest, does he?"

"No, but a guest must not interact with anyone other than the member who brought him and the club's staff. And silence must still be maintained. Now, in the dining room-"

"When I need the waiter, I signal to one, and then point to the menu."

"Well remembered. There are additional signs one can make to the waiter, but they also have a pad of paper if you need to write a message. I brought some cough sweets, though I hope we won't need them. Anything else before we go in?"

"What have they got to drink? Non-alcoholic, I mean. It'll be easier for me to keep quiet if I don't drink." He needed a clear head for this one.

"A sensible decision. They have some excellent homemade lemonade, as I recall. Very well, if you're ready, John, we'll go in. And...I'll speak to you later."

***

At first glance it was just another posh restaurant, though with more space than normal between its small tables. And then the silence hit you. No, not silence, quiet. Without the noise of voices or muzak you could suddenly hear the clink of cutlery, someone shifting in their chair, the muffled 'whoof' as the waiter shook out their napkins for them. John could hear his own heartbeat as well and wondered if the whole room could. He was more nervous than he'd expected about the club. He kept on thinking that any moment the eerie hush of the dining room would be broken with klaxons, as they realised that John was an intruder and threw him out. And he was slightly slurping his very tasty leek and wild mushroom soup, wasn't he?

But Mycroft was giving him a benevolent look that suggested he was really quite promising in the silent eating department. John smiled back and began to relax. Because he had been right. The Diogenes Club was an ideal place for flirting.

Without the need for awkward conversation, there was lots of time left for eye contact. The main course had arrived now, and in between mouthfuls, John stared a little too long at Mycroft, whose face had softened into its natural mobility. Mycroft's expression was now moving between pleasure at his own meal, and a slightly thoughtful assessment of John, his head tilting in concentration. John responded with his cheekiest grin then, and for a moment held out his rock-steady left hand, as he'd done the first time he ever met Mycroft. Back to his food – the roast really was excellent, wasn't it? Then, after a while, looking up again, to meet Mycroft's gaze, still apparently fixed on John. John licked his lips. Good, he thought as Mycroft shifted in his chair, this is working. He was tempted to start mirroring Mycroft's body language, but that might be a little too blatant. And no touching, not till Stage 2.

He had to time this right, he thought, as he went back to some sedate eating of his beef, feeling Mycroft still watching him. He'd worked out where to go, the main door to the club was clearly the one in the right-hand corner of the room in front of him. Now he needed to pick his moment, because he couldn't run. But he mustn't leave it too long - the next time Mycroft was distracted, he should go for it.

The waiter arrived with the dessert menu and Mycroft began a silent discussion with him. John got up and headed in a rapid walk towards the door. He looked round, as he went through. He had guessed correctly: to the right of the thickly-carpeted corridor he was in was a door marked 'Library'. He marched in and found an oak-panelled room full of silent men looking earnestly at newspapers. He swivelled round to face the door – well, he was supposed to ignore everyone else, wasn't he? And 1...2...3...4, here came Mycroft with his 'you're disrupting the workings of Her Majesty's government' face on. John reached up on tiptoe – if he had to fall for men, why couldn't he at least pick shorter ones? – grabbed Mycroft's shoulders, pulled his head down and started kissing him.

OK, now he'd got his mouth in action, time for a bit more cuddling. His arm snaked most of the way round Mycroft's waist and clung on. Mycroft the hermit crab versus John the limpet, and he knew who had the stronger grip. He wasn't having to stand on tiptoe now, which meant either Mycroft was bending down, or his legs were starting to buckle. Mycroft was wriggling rather a lot, though still keeping silent, so John's hand moved a little further down, pressing against Mycroft's backside, hauling him in. Mycroft was now clamped between John's arm and his body, so time for a bit of wriggling himself, trying to get them both...uncomfortable. This wasn't bad at all, was it? _Remember not to say anything, gentle on Mycroft's mouth, ease off a bit_...and Mycroft was responding, his hands against John's back, pressing hotly into the fine wool of John's new jacket. Which raised the question of who exactly it was whose hand was tapping John on the shoulder. He detached himself from Mycroft's hold – it was definitely Mycroft's hold by now -and looked round.

One of the club servants was there, in his smart red waistcoat, looking slightly disdainfully at them. Not good. And holding out something to Mycroft. What was it? A key, with a number on it. Definitely good. Mycroft took John's hand, and somehow managing once again to look like he was taking John off to tea with the Queen, led him out of the library and through a few corridors. Then upstairs. John opened his mouth, as they started to walk up, and Mycroft's fingers reached out and touched his lips, gesturing for silence. Rather a pleasant touch...

Mycroft opened a door in the upper corridor and led John through into a bedroom. Single bed only, but he supposed you couldn't expect anything else. He couldn't help it at that point, he started to giggle. He collapsed on the bed with his face in the pillow, trying to stifle the sound.

"Fortunately," said Mycroft, "the bedrooms are sound-proofed and silence isn't compulsory in this area. Which is just as well given your...exhibition downstairs." He was trying to sound cross and haughty, and making a complete hash of it.

"I didn't say anything, and you didn't pay attention to any other member," said John. "Well, when I say that..." He hadn't been responsible for all of the bodily friction just now. Talking of which, skin contact was supposed to boost bonding, wasn't it? Medical fact. Still giggling, he turned round, and started to unloosen his tie. Mycroft had decided that John needed help with his shirt buttons, which allowed John to start on what would obviously be the long and complex process of getting Mycroft's clothes off him.

His hands were steady, even if Mycroft's weren't, and John took his time undressing Mycroft, stroking the pale skin that was gradually revealed. When he got Mycroft topless he stopped. Don't push things further just yet, he thought, so he took off the rest of his own clothes and lay down on the bed. Nice comfortable bed, too, he thought, forgetting for a moment he was supposed to be looking alluring. Never mind, he'd just have to settle for happy. Because he was here and Mycroft was too, and had started to take off his trousers, which was definitely a good sign, especially given the navy boxers he revealed.

"Those silk?" John asked, sitting up and stretching out a hand. "Bet they're comfortable." He managed a few quick strokes of the fabric and its contents, and then backed off, sitting and watching as Mycroft rather tentatively took off his socks and then the boxers. He'd seen far worse, John decided, it was just that normally when he saw middle-aged men naked he was giving them a medical examination. Don't think of that, not helpful. Besides, the men who came to the surgery were very rarely so aroused. Which was definitely a cue to do something before Mycroft had second thoughts, and decided that his immediate priority ought to be subverting a Middle Eastern government or two.

"If I'm not supposed to talk in the club, I'd better find something else to do with my mouth, hadn't I?" he said, smiling, "so why don't you come and lie down here, and I'll work out what my options are?"

"An excellent show of initiative, John," said Mycroft, who managed for a moment to sound imperious even while stark naked. And then spoiled it by adding rather breathlessly: "I feel confident I'm safe in your...mouth."

Good job he doesn't know it's the first blow job I've been on this end of, thought John. But how complicated can it be?

***

More complicated than he'd realised, he decided after a couple of minutes, which involved rather less controlled sensuality on his part than he'd have liked, and rather more chasing a moving object with his tongue. On the other hand, Mycroft wasn't complaining – moaning, but not complaining – so he must be doing something right. John got his mouth down as far as he could over Mycroft's surprisingly bulky erection, tried not to gag, and decided that Mycroft's hips were now thrusting enough that he probably didn't have to do much more work himself. He did feel he had to come up for air after a while – which ended up involving quite a lot of kissing, so not much help for the oxygen intake, but very enjoyable otherwise – and then his mouth was back on Mycroft, and he could tell even without looking that Mycroft was getting close to the edge.

He mistimed removing his mouth slightly, and got more come in it than he'd have liked, which gave him new respect for some of his exes. And his mouth still felt extraordinarily weird.But it was worth it just for the blissful smirk on Mycroft's face, as he shifted over on the bed, and let John squeeze himself in beside him.

"Thank you," Mycroft said softly. They lay still for a minute or two, both still panting slightly, and then Mycroft turned to John, and said, with almost his normal superior tone: "I was told by a friend that the best way to rinse out one's mouth if one did need to...swallow was with a good red wine. Burgundy, maybe."

"Really?" said John, rather incoherently. Maybe it was just nervous reaction, but he did feel he was losing the plot. "And you reckon that's good advice?"

"Sort of thing Graham knew about," Mycroft said, with abrupt determination. "Graham Henderson. I presume Sherlock told you about him."

"Yeah, erm, he did," said John, thinking: _I am really not in a state to discuss this_.

"A complete sod in almost every way, but I did learn a lot from him," said Mycroft. "So I think we'll get some Burgundy up here, and then I'll return your favour, John, because I believe that I can remember at least some of the things Graham taught me about fellatio. If you want to retreat to the bathroom while I order room service, that's probably best. The Diogenes is surprisingly tolerant, but it's as well not to break the rules on solitariness too blatantly."

***

John slumped on the toilet seat. Well, he'd got a lot further than he might have done, but he hoped he wasn't going to wreck it all. It was one thing giving head, that was more or less under his conscious control, but if his body didn't respond to Mycroft, it was going to be awkward. Maybe he should fill up on the Burgundy. No, on second thoughts, that was likely to have the opposite effect, especially since his irredeemably straight side had apparently come out the last time he'd got drunk with Mycroft.But perhaps a few preliminaries, to start getting himself warmed up, now the first adrenaline rush was dying down?He looked round the bathroom, and then he spotted the bottles...

***

He was half-hard by the time he heard room service arrive and go, and when he went back into the bedroom, Mycroft already had the bottle of wine open. Only one glass, of course. John had a few sips first, and it did make his mouth feel better. Sod you, Graham Henderson, he thought, we're going to have the last laugh here. Mycroft was downing quite a bit of the wine.

"Prophylactic," he muttered, and John realised he was still nervous as well. Need to distract him, calm him down, John thought. He began to run his hands over Mycroft's face, warm and slightly soft against his own rough fingers.

"You found the hand cream then," Mycroft muttered, his cheek shifting into John's hand.

"I thought, why the hell not?" John replied. The lemony scent of it had seemed just right: fresh, sharp, vaguely daring. And then he remembered the other bottle that he'd found in the bathroom.

"But why does the Diogenes have lubricant in their bathrooms? Practically industrial quantities."

"Surely that's obvious?"

"Nope."

"Given that this is an establishment with an exceptionally solitary clientele, their sexual tastes also tend to the ...self-centred."

"You're trying to tell me, aren't you," John said, starting to giggle again, "that the club's full of upper-class wankers."

"Did you ever doubt it?" Mycroft replied, smiling, no, grinning back, and God, John suddenly realised, didn't he have a sexy mouth? His body twitched almost automatically against Mycroft's, and Mycroft, suddenly alert, was moving surprisingly quickly down the bed to straddle John. As Mycroft's lips touched his foreskin, John realised this was going to be like when he first tried abseiling. Ready yourself, no going back now, and let's hope the ride down's fun.

***

He'd never imagined being given oral sex by Mycroft in a posh London club, but it was...amazing. Even more of a rush than the first time abseiling . It had gone on for a lot longer, as well, and his legs was trembling almost as much by the end. And Graham sodding Henderson had chosen MI6's pension fund over this? Bloody accountants.

And then Mycroft was beside him again, and reaching for the Burgundy, and offering the glass to John, and saying, smiling. "Perhaps a little rest and then...given they've provided all that lubricant, it seems a shame not to use some of it."

"Fine," said John, because if the Diogenes Club didn't mind you having long-lasting sex sessions in their bedrooms, who the hell was he to argue? And his body was obviously far less discriminating than he'd ever realised, and positive reinforcement of desired behaviour was always a good thing, wasn't it?

***   


Yet another thing John had never imagined doing was fucking Mycroft in the Diogenes, which managed to be almost as filthy an act as it sounded, and surprisingly satisfying. It seemed that Mycroft was anxious to eradicate the memory of Graham Henderson as thoroughly as possible, and the Holmeses never did anything by halves, did they? John wondered vaguely if he ought to let Mycroft fuck him next – it was probably going to hurt, but it could hardly be worse than basic training.

But Mycroft smiled wisely at that point, and said: "I think that's really enough excitement for this evening. Besides, we have one or two things to do when we get back home."

"We have?" said John. It was news to him that they were going back to no. 187, but he bet Mycroft had a really comfortable bed, and he was almost beyond caring now.

"I need to get the iris recognition pattern for you online, though we may need to wait for a little pupil constriction to get a good reading. And, of course, if you're not too tired, we need to set the bread machine up. After all, there's nothing that's nicer to wake up to in the morning than fresh bread," said Mycroft. And then his smile seemed to engulf his face: "Well, almost nothing."


End file.
